


Slowly and Then All At Once

by writingmonsters



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Adam Gets His Shit Together, Adam Jones is an Idiot, And Tony is Just Unbearably Cute and Squishy, Declarations Of Love, I don't know, Love Confessions, M/M, Mostly There's Lots of Feels, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Tony is Absolutely Precious, They're a Mes, Tony Balerdi is the Definition of Gay Panic, god help them, it's a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 06:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15309855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” -- John GreenInsight does not come easily to Adam Jones.





	Slowly and Then All At Once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misanthropiclycanthrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropiclycanthrope/gifts).



> Dedicated to the wonderful misanthropiclycanthrope who provides endless encouragement, feels, and who was probably getting really tired of hearing "I'm gonna finish it today I swear" for like a week. I love you and I hope this hits you right in the feels.

_ “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” _ \-- John Green

Insight does not come easily to Adam Jones.

Revelations are hard-won things, battering their way past the defenses; the laser-focus, the euphoric tides of mania and crashes of depression, the thick, stupid skull and the arrogant, posturing facade. It is a slow onslaught -- common sense and naked truth laying siege against the layers of willful, pigheaded recklessness.

But, sometimes -- with needle tracks bruising his arms and the vomit and alley-damp soaked into him in Paris, with his face bruised and throbbing and Reece’s expression impassive in the cool light of the London morning -- sometimes a sliver of insight does break through.

_ If you don’t get clean now _ , he’d told his reflection in Paris,  _ there’s not going to be any going back. You’re gonna die a terrible death as a junkie _ .

The Master Plan, devised in New Orleans.

And, then, in London. The revelation had been slow, hammering away at the back of his mind for months -- a niggling thought stubbornly unacknowledged. Until. His face throbbing, ribs battered. Helene’s grin muffled behind her fist. The taste of Tony’s stunned, soft mouth humming on his lips.  _ You need these people -- you can’t do this alone. You need them _ .

A year on and the itching in his veins is quieter now, the hollow hunger and chaos that had raged at his soul are soothed into silence. The need is still there. The itch. But it is easier to ignore with every table booked, every place-setting filled. They have their three stars -- the restaurant is unparalleled, the reviews are glowing.

When his demons grow too loud, Adam finds his way back into the kitchen. He experiments, perfects new recipes, cranks out lengths of pasta noodles and pounds bread dough into exquisite pastry shapes. This is good. These are positive coping mechanisms.

This is where he stumbles upon an entirely new revelation, one that has been building since he strode through the doors of the  _ Langham _ . It comes on slowly and softly, with the faint bleed of light beneath the kitchen’s massive double doors.

It is not the kitchen that is lit up -- a light left on over the stove or one of the warming lamps still burning steadily above the pass. Adam pushes through the swinging doors to find the frosted glass wall of Tony’s office glowing hazy and golden, reflected off the pristine surfaces of the white countertops and stainless steel appliances.

It is the witching hour. Half-past one in the morning. Restless, his brain giving off sparks like a live-wire, Adam Jones is the only soul awake to prowl the  _ Langham  _ at this hour. Tony must have forgotten to switch off the lights -- Adam isn’t all that surprised. 

As much as Adam has poured his blood and sweat and fury into the kitchens, Tony has poured in equal and even more into the front-of-house and the rest of the hotel. His official title is still maitre d’, but his father has gotten sicker and more of the business has fallen onto Tony’s slim shoulders -- finances, bookings. Not just the restaurant, but the hotel now, too. 

He handles it with aplomb, maybe seems a bit more frazzled recently. More preoccupied and short-fused than usual. Adam knows, if it were him, the results would be ugly and massive in scale. He can’t possibly begrudge Tony leaving the lights on. 

Flicking the switch on the kitchen’s overhead halogen bulbs, Adam crosses to the office door that gapes, slightly ajar on its hinges. He just means to turn off the lights, to lock the door; but his fingers freeze around the doorknob, his attention caught on the sight silhouetted in the half-open doorway.

Tony is a warm wash of half-shadows and contours in the soft halo of light from the single-bulbed desk lamp, the softness of his cheek pillowed on some incomprehensible spreadsheet. A smooth curve of spine, the lines of his suit hopelessly rumpled. Asleep, Tony Balerdi’s boyish face is frighteningly vulnerable.

Sleep eases the strain from between his eyebrows, smooths the tightness around his eyes. The light from the desk lamp, the computer monitor, shows the blue bruises beneath Tony’s eyes, the exhaustion writ on every inch of him. Too many passes of frustrated fingers through his hair have undone the last efforts of his pomade and Adam’s hand twitches to brush a fine, tawny-soft comma of hair back off Tony’s temple. 

How many nights has the light been on beyond the frosted glass door when even Adam had quit the kitchen and gone to bed? How often has he wandered down from the penthouse suite to find Tony already with his nose in his papers, coffee cup in hand?

The sight of him makes something tighten behind Adam’s breastbone, screwing up his ribcage like a vise. And this is the new revelation that creeps slowly into awareness, dawns across the forefront of his brain.

Tony Balerdi, with all his fussiness and spitfire attitude and anxiety, is  _ essential _ .

Adam loves him.

How did he not know sooner? How had he not realized?

“Tony?” Circling the desk, Adam smooths a hand over slim shoulders, the calluses of a million shucked oysters and a lifetime of knives and saucepans catching against the weave of Tony’s suit coat. “Hey,” he murmurs. “ _ Tony _ .”

“Mph.” A quiet, unhappy noise. 

“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” he promises. “It’s just me.” Adam slips his palm up from Tony’s shoulder into the soft muss of his hair, stroking his fingers gently along the knob of his skull. “What’re you doing, Tony?” Tony whimpers and Adam smooths the back of his hand along his cheek making soothing, shushing noises. 

A frown -- a petulant, puzzled twist of the cupid’s bow mouth and serious eyebrows -- and Tony says “Adam” with a lilt to the second syllable along the flat of his tongue, the way he always says it, Ah- _ dam _ \-- without quite opening his eyes. “What --? Has something happened?” He shifts, peeling himself off the surface of the desk. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Adam reassures him, crouching to catch the flutter of long eyelashes, the baffled look in the maitre d’s bright jasper eyes. And there is an unbearable fondness that sits tight at the base of his throat as he watches the play of awareness across that face. “Yeah, no, everything’s fine -- but it’s late, Tones. What are you still doing here?”

Tony blows a despairing sigh through his lips, dragging the back of his hand across his eyes. “Shit,” he mumbles. “I was going over the accounts, I must have nodded off.”

Adam eyes the scatter of papers across the desktop, the blinking of the computer monitor. He is willing to bet this is far from the first time Tony has fallen asleep at the desk. And he has visions of the ceramic coffee cup that has become an ever-present companion, Tony’s slim fingers hooked through the handle. The overworked French press and the lingering smell of coffee grounds. 

And how had Adam not noticed? The tired eyes. The soft, full face grown slimmer -- Tony only ever snatching an apple or one of the deformed ‘discard’ pastries between services. He has been poorly kept. Mismanaged. And Adam has been too thick headed to see it.

He lets his hand skim from Tony’s shoulder up to the nape of his neck, finding the short soft hairs there, caught in an unbearable rush of affection. “C’mon Tony, you can’t sleep here.”

The Tube has long-since stopped running and even if Adam can flag down a black cab, he hates the thought of packing Tony off on his own when he is so exhausted -- eyes already drifting closed again, leaning heavily against Adam’s hip. 

“Up you get.” Adam gets his hands under his arms and eases him up and out of the chair. Tony grumbles something that might be nonsense or slurred, quiet Spanish. He is warm and solid and fits perfectly tucked up against Adam’s side, frowning that muzzy, sleepy-faced scowl as his brain tries to work out endless logistics of being upright and getting himself home.

How stupid is Adam, that he never realized just how much he  _ adores  _ Tony Balerdi? “C’mon,” he says. “I gotcha.”

The pins-and-needles pricking in his palms is dull, the itch of old track marks quiets. Adam forgets about zucchini noodles and the hand-crank spiralizer that he can work until his hands ache and his arm feels ready to fall off. Distractions from the demons. He guides Tony with an arm around his waist, leaves the office and the kitchens plunged into darkness.

“I am  _ fine  _ \-- just a little tired.” Tony stifles a yawn, their footsteps gathered up in the silence of the empty restaurant, the peaceful stillness of the hotel lobby lit soft and low by a careful scattering of lamplight. “There is no need for you to escort me.”

“I know,” Adam hums as he steers them toward the bank of gleaming elevator doors. Tony is too busy grousing, staring at his shuffling feet, to realize they are not headed in the direction of the hotel’s revolving door. “I know -- you’re always fine. You take on too much work and you don’t ask for help--” Tony snorts disingenuously “-- and you stress yourself to death and fall asleep at your  _ desk _ , but you’re fine. Sure, I know I don’t have any right to lecture you. But let me take care of you, all right?”

Tony blinks at him then, frowning up at the wall of elevators that rumble quietly, rising along their heavy cables. “I’m not --? This isn’t -- Adam, I’ll just take a cab home.”

“It’s like one thirty, Tony.” The elevator chimes, doors peeling apart with a low hydraulic sigh. Adam corralls Tony toward the open doors. Another night, maybe, he would itch for an argument -- his blood would sing for a fight. But Tony looks too fragile and there are too many things making Adam’s chest tight and his heart dreadfully soft. He takes Tony gently by the shoulders, maneuvering them both into the elevator and slouching against the cool metal wall. “You’ve missed all the trains, cabs are gonna be few and far between, and you’re about to fall asleep on your feet again. Just come upstairs -- you’re taking my bed tonight.” 

“Adam!” Tony bolts away from him so fast that he nearly cracks his skull on Adam’s chin. “Oh, I can’t--” he stares at Adam with wide, sleep-bruised eyes. A little bit frightened, a little bit heartsore. The soft flop of loose hair has tumbled down across his forehead. Adam fights the urge to reach up and smooth it back.

“I’m not asking you, Tony.” The elevator rises, counting off the floors. “You’re exhausted. You need to sleep.” He watches Tony waver; the nervous way he purses his lips, his eyes darting to the elevator doors that chime softly, announcing their arrival on the floor.

“Adam.” His name sticks in Tony’s throat.

“Yeah, Tony.” The silence in the corridor is swollen, heavy with potential, with things unsaid. Adam’s gaze is steady.

“You shouldn’t --” Tony swallows hard, looks away quickly. His soft brown eyes are glazed over; glossy with old hurt and too many hours without sleep. “ _ Please _ ... don’t.” An unsteady breath. “Don’t be kind.”

The plea is like a slap, stuns Adam all but to silence, to stillness -- leaves him startled and stinging and open-mouthed with the shock of it.

_ Don’t be kind. Please _ . It hurts too much. It hurts so, so much for Tony to face the prospect of Adam’s kindness without love. It always feels like so much pity. Their easy friendship has been gentle on Tony’s tender, tightly-guarded soul; Adam harrasses and amuses and is fond -- but never  _ kind _ . Never so concerned, so careful -- as though Tony is precious.

Adam nudges and prods and slings his arm around Tony’s shoulders, his waist. This is not… He does not hold Tony. He does not cradle him or stroke his hair or touch his face with such reverence. Except in the rare, bitter dreams Tony allows himself. Except that mad, brilliant morning -- he had begged Adam to laugh in the relief of the Michelin revelation, and instead Adam had kissed him.

“Tony…” Adam stares at him now -- all intense, electric blue eyes. He doesn’t say anything more. Can’t find the words for  _ I’m sorry that the smallest show of kindness was enough to break your heart _ and  _ you deserve all the kindness in the world _ and  _ I haven’t treated you right, will you let me try again _ ? He says “the room’s this way.”

“I know.” With his elbows tucked in close to his sides, scrubbing at one eye, Tony seems dreadfully small, unmoored in the middle of the hotel’s corridor. “This is my hotel, Adam. I know where you are staying.”

“It’s your father’s hotel.” Adam puts his goddamn foot in his goddamn mouth. 

“No.” Tony shakes his head faintly, trailing Adam down the hall. “Not anymore. He is declining rapidly. Last week we signed the papers for transfer of ownership.” There is something naked in Tony’s expression, something stricken and hollow. “The hotel and the restaurant are mine now.”

Adam fishes in his pockets for the key card that is, in fact, on the nightstand in the hotel room. “Jesus,” he says “no wonder you aren’t sleeping.” 

Without a word, Tony slips a hand into the inner pocket of his blazer, passes Adam the master keycard -- warm where it has been tucked so close to his chest. 

“Thanks.”

Adam lets the into the suite, acutely aware of Tony’s silent presence at his shoulder, hovering and uncertain and stuck close enough that Adam’s hand brushes against his hip when he shifts his weight. Moving through the room, Adam clicks on bedside lamps, shuffling through the whirlwind of clothes strewn on the floor and blackout curtains thrown wide open to let in the dark, sparkling sprawl of the London cityscape. Adam draws the curtains closed, sets about gathering up the wrinkled t-shirts from the chaos of the bedcovers as Tony lingers in the entryway, shifting from foot to foot and wringing his slender, graceful hands.

Even with all the resources of the hotel at his disposal, Adam continues to live rough -- like the gross, untidy bachelor he is -- and he sniffs warily at a soft, worn t-shirt, scooped off the floor before deciding that it is, in fact, clean laundry. “Here.” He tosses the shirt to Tony. It hits him in the chest. A pair of thick flannel pajama pants follow swiftly.

Tony clutches the bundle of clothes, a little baffled knot of anxiety tightening between his eyebrows. And Adam does not know how to be careful, how to be gentle with fragile things. “Sit down before you fall down, Tony,” he urges with a loose gesture toward the rumpled bed.

Smudging a knuckle under one eye, Tony acquiesces. He perches lightly on the edge of the bed, blinking slow and heavy, afraid to leave so much as an indentation in the mattress -- any unwelcome, unasked for sign of his existence in Adam’s room. His slim fingers cease to twist themselves round and round in tangles and he reaches instead for the loosened Windsor knot of his tie, fumbling it free.

Adam watches the bow of his head, the soft curve of his spine beneath the displaced layers of his polished maitre d’ persona. He slips the t-shirt over his head, shakes out the restlessness in his hands. “Tony.” He loves him -- the awareness of it sits softly behind his breastbone, swelling in his chest -- he loves him and he has been too damn stupid to realize it and Tony looks one good blow from shattering.

His father. 

The weight of the restaurant and the hotel now resting squarely on his shoulders. 

The recent upset with the waitstaff being short-handed.

Adam is not used to being careful with things -- he has left a trail of damage and destruction in his wake. But he has learned, since his return to London, to soften his handling, to gentle his edges, and he approaches Tony on bare feet and kneels in one fluid motion, gesturing for one of the polished brown oxfords. 

“Here,” he insists, manhandling one foot into his lap when Tony remains too frozen to react. “At this rate, if I leave you to do this yourself it’s gonna take all night.” 

Tony makes a small noise at the back of his throat, his face flushed and pink in the lamplight, and goes back to fiddling apart the buttons on his cuffs. He manages to be about as pliable as a block of wood, knees unyielding, ankles fused, but Adam patiently works off first one shoe and then the other and sets them neatly aside -- does not toss them into a corner as is his own habit.

Tony’s socks are navy -- to match his tie -- and covered in merlot-red polka dots.

Adam is  _ helpless _ .

He squeezes Tony’s knee -- recalls how, a year ago, they had stood at the foot of the bed and Adam had gathered him close, had caught his face in his hands and kissed him, the both of them stunned and breathless and barely able to believe, caught up in the adrenaline high -- hauls himself to his feet.

Tony is still fiddling with the goddamn buttons.

Oh.  _ Oh _ . Adam can’t help it, he brushes the back of his knuckles against Tony’s flushed cheek, smooths the loose strands of hair back off his forehead, and then disappears into the bathroom to let Tony undress in privacy. Tony has always been reserved. Shy. In all the years Adam has known him, he doesn’t think he has seen more than his forearms bared -- shirtsleeves rolled up against the summer heat -- has only ever seen him once dressed casually in a t-shirt and tight jogging bottoms. The crisp shirts, the tidy suits, even his absurd socks, are the neat, well-polished version of a maitre d’s armor. A protective layer.

Adam brushes his teeth and lets the water run a few seconds extra, lays his palms flat on the cool surface of the countertop in an effort to quell the itch to touch, to act, to do. When he emerges, Tony is in the same spot on the edge of the bed, but he has exchanged his suit for the worn grey t-shirt and flannel pajamas -- too broad in the shoulder and too long in the leg. The absence of three layers of business attire manages to soften him even further, leaves him looking tender-edged and vulnerable.

_ Lovely _ .

Tony catches Adam’s staring and flushes, darts a glance quickly at him and away again. “Thank you,” he stumbles. “For this. For -- letting me stay. I…” Tony makes a helpless gesture.

“ _ Hey _ .” Adam is before him in an instant, his voice low and breathless with affection.  _ Oh, I’ve mistreated you so badly, my Little Tony _ . “Hey, I know my track record isn’t the best -- but I’m here for you, Tony.” And Tony won’t look him in the eye, so he smooths his palm over the curve of his skull, mussing Tony’s absurdly soft hair, and slides his hand down to cradle the hinge of his jaw. “We do what we do, right? And we do it together.  _ I’ve got you _ .”

The last thing he expects is for Tony to lunge forward, to bury his face in Adam’s stomach with a shuddering, tremulous breath and wrap his arms around his waist. Adam freezes, his whole body locked up and rendered stupid by the warm press of Tony’s face against his belly, the sudden damp of tears bleeding through the thin material of his t-shirt and Tony’s hitching breaths that cause the hands to spasm at the small of his back.

“Whoa,” Adam hesitates -- scarcely dares to breathe -- before he lets his arms settle at his sides, strokes the nape of Tony’s neck and cards his fingers through his hair. “Hey, it’s all right, sweetheart. You’re all right.”

_ Sweetheart _ .

It rolls so naturally off his tongue, fits around Tony like a bespoke suit. 

_ Sweetheart _ . Of course, he is.

Adam can’t believe it took him so long to realize.

He stays there, bracketed between Tony’s knees, whispering reassurances and rubbing circles into the tightly-knotted hunch of his shoulders until Tony’s grip on his t-shirt starts to ease, until each breath becomes less a sob and more a sigh.

Tony manages one deep, exhausted breath, peeling himself regretfully away from Adam. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, pink-faced and damp-eyed. “I’m sorry - that was…”

“Nothing you need to apologize for,” Adam cuts him off firmly. “You’ve seen a hell of a lot worse from me.”

“I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of your t-shirt.” Tony reaches out to pluck at the smear of snot and tears against Adam’s front, shamefaced. 

“T’shirt’s also seen a hell of a lot worse from me,” Adam shrugs. 

That startles a watery, delighted laugh from Tony. The way his face lights up makes Adam’s stomach do a cartwheel. “C’mon,” he says “it’s way past both our bedtimes. It’s only afternoon service tomorrow, but still -- gonna be short-changed on sleep as it is.”

And all at once, the walls are back up, precarious and wobbly as they may be. Tony sits up straighter, his expression schooled, mouth tight. The slim fingers start to twist and tangle in his lap again. Adam waves him up off the bed and attempts to put the tangled nest of sheets to rights. He nudges Tony a few times until the man scoots himself up onto the bed, laying down gingerly on the disarray of pillows.

He curls himself at the furthest edge of the bed, stiff and ill at ease, while Adam turns off the bedside lamps and crawls beneath the covers. In the darkness, Tony is a rigid hunch of spine and shoulder beneath the blankets, his back to Adam, breathing carefully.

“G’night Tony.”

A slight twitch. “Good night, Adam.” 

Adam lays for a long time, flat on his stomach with the pillow wadded up beneath his head, watching the slow, deep rise and fall of Tony’s shoulders. The tension bleeds away slowly. For all of his shyness and anxiety, Tony is asleep almost as soon as the last of the light fades from the room. He has been badly deprived of proper sleep for too many nights, has run himself too ragged.

He has always been able to read Tony like an open book. For all that he has cultivated the perfect manners, the sharp wit and polished surface of a peerless maitre d’, Tony Balerdi has never been able to master his own cherubic face, has always worn his emotions just below the surface for anyone to read if they took the time to look. Adam has always known how to read people, has always known how to look. 

The nervous energy. The brightness of his eyes. The way his lilting voice would catch and stammer. All the little tells that Tony had berated himself for endlessly, had tried so hard to hide -- Rosshilde had been the one to say the words aloud, “you know he’s in love with you, don’t you?” but Adam had already known for a long, long time. Even in his drug-addled haze he had recognized that much.

Tony Balerdi had been loving him quietly, shyly for years.

In the stillness, Adam considers their shared history. How he had leaned so heavily on Tony in Paris. Had played all his cards on the faith that Tony would still bend where Adam was concerned when he touched down in London. The push-and-pull, stubbornness and affection and how he -- who trusts very little and loves sparingly -- trusts Tony so implicitly.

Adam Jones is a fucking idiot.

He has been loving Tony Balerdi all this time -- since that first hungry, furious moment when the maitre d’ had found him in the hotel room, trembling with emotion, and suggested that he swallow his own tongue -- without even realizing it.

Rolling onto his back, Adam searches the shadow of the ceiling for some kind of… something. Divine Insight. Clarity. The smoke detector blinks steadily at him from the corner of the room, an impassive green eyeball.

He throws an arm over his eyes and groans.

Across the narrow, carefully constructed span of mattress and bedcovers, Tony makes a small, troubled noise, burrowing deeper into the bed. Adam rolls his head on the pillow and finds that Tony -- sound asleep -- has turned to face him, the shadows of his face just barely visible in the darkness. He looks so unhappy. A worried crease knitting itself deep between his eyebrows, the curve of his mouth drawn tight and clenched.

And Adam Jones has never been one to leave well-enough alone -- can never quite help himself. His hand slips out from beneath the sheets. The pad of his thumb traces the soft curve of one dark brow, smooths over the anxious furrow.

Tony whimpers, pressing into the touch, chasing Adam’s hand. 

Adam thinks,  _ shit what am I doing? _

And then Tony shifts and there is no more of the safe zone of mattress left between them; the warm, solid dancer’s body curled securely into Adam’s side. 

Oh.

For a moment, Adam does not dare move, does not dare risk disturbing the fragile stillness. Tony’s fingers catch in the fabric of his shirt, curling loosely. He sighs, contented. And Adam settles then, wraps his arms around him, and bundles him in close. Tony’s head fits perfectly into the juncture of Adam’s neck and shoulder, the weight of him firm and secure settled on Adam’s chest.

He tangles his fingers into the softness of Tony’s hair, traces his knuckles along the subtle ridges of his vertebrae. The itch in his fingers is quiet.

* * *

Tony Balerdi cannot remember the last time he has slept so well.

The bed is warm, a cocoon of comfortable sheets and thick duvet, rising and falling steadily beneath his cheek. A gentle, familiar  _ lub-dub lub-dub _ against his ear. And that… doesn’t make sense. 

There shouldn’t be arms around him. A firm body serving as his pillow - and who?

Oh  _ shit _ .

Adam. Adam who had found him in the office after he’d fallen asleep at his desk like a fool. Adam who had discovered just how overworked and overwraught he was and had coaxed him to bed, to rest -- and Tony… what had he  _ done _ ?

There had been tears, and Adam being painfully, tenderly kind and… and…

He is in Adam Jones’s arms.  _ In his bed _ . 

Tony wants to sink through the mattress into the floor and die. He tries to breathe, manages a hitching, stuttering gasp. The blood in his ears rushes like the crash of tidal waves against the sand, his heartbeat rapid and desperate.  _ Oh God, oh no, what have you done, oh God, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. _

And he can smell the faint, lingering bite of Adam’s cologne and the warm, heavier scent of  _ Adam  _ trapped among the sheets. Feels the comfortable, secure weight of one arm curled around his waist, the other wrapped beneath his ribs. Cradled. In weaker moments he had let himself imagine this -- had dreamed guiltily of these same arms around him -- but never had he allowed himself to imagine that he would feel so safe, so beloved.

He can’t indulge this.

Shifting, he risks testing the firmness of Adam’s embrace. The depths of his sleep. If he can just untangle himself from the chaos of the bedsheets, slip out from under Adam’s arm… He will dress as quietly as he can, will leave a note thanking Adam for his kindness, his hospitality, and he will disappear with his shame and horror into the office where he keeps a spare kit bag of toiletries in the desk drawer.

They will never have to speak of this.

He feels his pulse, wild and hysterical, rising in the base of his throat as he shifts again -- inches himself off of Adam. And his traitorous body mourns the loss of warmth, of comfort, of close contact. Adam stirs, makes a rumbling sound in his chest, and oh it’s  _ terrible _ , but his steady sleep-breathing doesn’t change and Tony cringes, screws up his face and--

The arms tighten around his middle, drawing him flush against Adam who is all blue eyes and fond, crooked smile and Tony makes a frightened, undignified noise to find himself tucked so securely back into Adam’s arms. So  _ intentionally _ .

"Are you enjoying this?” Adam gleams down at him -- it’s an awkward angle, but Adam’s hand cups the back of his head and Tony stares up at him from his new vantage point on Adam’s chest, wild-eyed. “ _ I’m _ enjoying this,” Adam informs him warmly. “You're not going anywhere."

This isn’t… This can’t be… 

It’s too cruel.

“Let me go.”

Adam sees the moment the shutters are drawn, the storm doors slamming closed on Tony’s heart; it’s a sharp flicker of hurt, a sheen of heartbreak passing across those brilliant brown eyes. He says “Tony…”

“ _ Let me go _ .” Tony gives him an elbow in the ribs for good measure, clawing his way out of the becovers, scrambling to his feet. Every line of him is sharp with anguish.

“Tony.” And Adam can hardly react fast enough, is still reeling at the about-face, but damn it he should have seen this coming. Should have realized that just because he’d finally gotten it through his own thick head didn’t mean Tony wasn’t going to suddenly think anything had changed. “ _ Tony _ . Jesus Christ, will you just wait a second?”

His suit has been thrown over the chair in the corner of the room and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, can hardly think for the blind panic clouding his vision and the static in his ears that tumbles out a litany of  _ you idiot what were you thinking  _ and  _ he doesn’t love you he can’t possibly  _ and  _ you’ve ruined everything oh Christ, at least he’s only mocking you at least he hasn’t hit you oh God what have you done you moron… _

And Adam’s hands land heavy on his shoulders, enough that he flinches. Terrified. Trembling. “Don’t,” Tony whispers. The dress shirt in his hands crumples, wrinkles. His voice is thick with tears. “Adam, don’t.  _ Please _ .”

_ Don’t be kind _ . Adam remembers the weary plea -- how can he be anything but kind now? “Tony,” he sighs. “Look, I know I’ve been a dumbass, and I know this is scary and I know you aren’t gonna believe me, but -- if you’ll just listen? Just for a second?” He ducks down, tilting his head this way and that to try and catch Tony’s eye. 

Reluctantly, Tony drags his gaze up from the white shirt fisted in his hands. “What do you want from me?” His voice is ragged. “What else can you  _ possibly  _ want, Adam?”

“Nothing.” Adam’s anwer is instant. “Nothing, Tony. I don’t want a damn thing, except to love you the way you should be loved.” And he hardly understands it himself, the revelation is still so new, but he means it -- means every word in his very bones. “Because I do. I love you, Tony Balerdi.”

Tony doesn’t look away this time, but his whole face quivers. Crumples. “Stop it. Adam.” It is the cruelest of jokes, and Adam has been cruel -- but never like this. He has never used Tony’s love against him. “Stop -- this isn’t funny.”

“I didn’t mean it to be.” Stone cold sober. The words deadly serious. 

“But…” 

“I love you, Tony.” And there is a tenuous smile creeping at the corners of Adam’s mouth, an earnestness to the words. An honesty.

“No, you don’t.” Tony will not let himself believe in this happiness. He doesn’t notice the tears that have slipped out, hot and ashamed, until Adam reaches up, caresses them away with a gentle brush of his knuckles over soft cheekbones.

“Why don’t I?” Those pale, frightful blue eyes are adamant. 

“Because… Because you  _ don’t _ . You  _ can’t _ .”

“But I do.” And then the hands, big and calloused from a punishment shucking oysters, from handling the tools of the kitchen trade, are cradling Tony’s face. So carefully. So gently. And they have been here before in a moment of shock, of exhultation. “I do,” Adam says again and Tony swallows hard against the sob that threatens to break loose from his chest and Adam tells him softly “I think I’ve loved you for a while now, I’ve just been too stupid to realize it.”

This time, when he kisses Tony, it is slow and gentle and tender. A careful, tentative press of lips and the taste of salt-water tears and the dress shirt slips from Tony’s hands between them -- a white flag dropped. Surrender. 

Adam asks and Tony opens up, the kiss full and deep, and it is all Tony can do to twist his fingers in Adam’s t-shirt, to clutch and cling and  _ hold on _ , entirely overcome. He had not imagined… He had never dared to dream.

“I love you,” he breathes when Adam chases kisses along the corner of his mouth, his jaw, his cheeks. Forbidden words he’d held in ill-kept secret for so long. Something long atrophied in him comes to life, unknots itself, now that he has finally given himself permission to speak. “You stupid bastard, I love you.” 

“I know,” Adam soothes, waltzing him lightly in place. His smile is dazzling, dizzying. The kind of smile you could get drunk on. “I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

There is no more poison in his veins. There are three stars beside his name and a restaurant flourishing under his hand. And there is Tony Balerdi, who has loved him silently for so many years, who has propped him up time and time again when he has stumbled, when he has fallen so hard it seemed there was no getting back up again -- who he loves with equal measure.

“Can I cook you breakfast?” 

Tony smiles, soft as the sunrise. “Why not.”


End file.
